Hong Kong Politician Bejeweled, Unrepentant

Thanks to GamersWithJobs for its story revealing the Hong Kong Education Secretary was recently caught playing a puzzle game on his PDA during a 'lengthy legislative meeting.' According to the original story in the Straits Times, he was spotted playing games by "student representatives, who were seated one row behind the education chief." In addition, GamersWithJobs is delighted to note: "Being the gamer that he is, [Professor Li] even refused to apologize for playing Bejeweled on his PDA, as 'no constructive opinions' were voiced in the debate."

Comments

I can see where he's comming from..

[hookedup]

The wife and I were hooked on this game for a while, having to 'fight' for pc time to play. There is not too much thinking involved as the puzzle would show you which pieces to click if you wait long enough...

Re:I can see where he's comming from..

[Bullet-Dodger]

Dude, I think your .sig just insulted your wife.

Hell ya

[meta-monkey]

That's awesome. I wish more politicians would just say "you know, I did it, I meant to do it, and whatcha gonna do about it?" when this sort of thing happens. Professor Li didn't get elected saint, after all. When you can't deny it, and you can't really defend it, just say "screw it."

It's kind of like Clinton's whole "I didn't inhale" fiasco. If he'd just said, "It was the 60's, lots of stuff was going on, I tried it a couple times and didn't like it, and I don't think anybody else should do it either," it would have all blown over, and nobody would have cared. Gore admitted to smoking pot. I think several of the leading candidates for the Democratic nomination for 2k4 have (Dean I know admitted it) and nobody cares. Instead, Clinton told such a ridiculously obvious lie, and became a laughing stock. Live & learn.

Re:Hell ya

[GreyWolf3000]

The situation gets worse with harder drugs though. Bush basically had to fess up to cocaine addiction. "I don't think the answer would send a positive message to the children of America" means 'yes.'

Also, he could have really liked smoking marijuana. Admitting to smoking it and not admitting to enjoying it can be lying all the same. By sending the message that pot isn't fun, you also alienate youth (i.e. they're not 'supposed' to like it but they do). The message you really need to send to kids is that for most people, pot is fun and presents no immediate danger, but it is folly to think that it is altogether harmless. It's true dangers lie in regular usage over time, which can completely cripple one's spirit.

Re:Hell ya

[meta-monkey]

That's quite true on both counts. Still, a little more honesty would be nice :)

I suppose you can't have it, though. I don't think anybody should do drugs, but I don't hold it against anybody who does. You own your body, you should be able to smoke, sniff, or shoot up anything you like. Heck, if I had it my way, you'd be able to walk into Eckerd's and buy crack. However, I am in a small, small minority, and the vast majority of Americans don't see it my way. If Bush had come out and said "yeah I snorted coke, and it was a really dumb idea" or Clinton had said "Oh man, pot is awesome!" their chances for election would have been zilch.

However, I think it's also very telling. Both Clinton and Bush are for the war on drugs. At least, neither of them ever did a damn thing to put a stop to it. However, both were obvious drug users. Gore admited smoking pot. The current crop of candidates include many users. Yet, they all support the idea that people who do the same thing they did should be thrown in jail. I really wish that during the last election, somebody had asked Gore and Bush during a debate, "would you have been better off today, or worse off today, if you had spent time in jail as a twenty-something for your 'youthful indescretions' with regards to drug use?"

Re:Hell ya

[shaitand]

Why should they be against it? Putting a stop to it would reduce the value of their crops in columbia. And it would probably reduce crime overall. Besides that, although they aren't immune to scandal, they personally ARE immune to the war on drugs ;)

I remember that...

[GreyWolf3000]

That's the same argument I used when I was caught playing Solitaire in my 10th grade computer science class on the old Windows 95 boxes.

They didn't buy it then, and I don't think they shoud buy it now.

Yay for this guy!

[Neop2Lemus]

I draw pics in my notebook.

Just cuz I don't own a PDA doesn't mean I'm interested!

Setting Precedent...

[zenintrude]

It's going to be pretty hard to rationalize punishing Hong Kong students for playing games in class after this revelation...

But I'm sure rampant hypocrisy will continue to reign supreme, as is the status quo in the world.

I wonder why...

[Lifewish]

...the students told on him. Personally, I've been through enough painfully boring lessons that I would never turn someone in for skipping the FUD.

Something to clarify

[Anonymous Coward]

While the rest of the world thought all politicans are elected by one-person-one-vote basis like the rest of the democratic system, he's not elected. He's been appointed by governer, or Chief Executive Officer Mr. Tung Chee Wah.

Therefore, he can always find his "What can you do to me? BLOW ME!" attitude.

You probably don't know him much. Here is a list of good deeds he's doing:

1) He's planning to merge a major university into Chinese Unversity of whom he was appointed to be the president. Though he declines to give favour to Chinese University in the merge, but his intention is so clear. Say, he proposed to sell the properties of victim university to support the cost of merging.
2) He withdraw all his promises made during a meeting with student representatives of all students unions. Promises include not cutting budget of all sub-degree programs, which he advocated in the first place.
3) He refused to talk to students on the issues of huge budget cut on education for the coming years, until recently, thanks to the political climate changed after 5mil+ people hit the street on 1/7/2003

He's not elected, and he's not accountable.

Re:Something to clarify

[Bagels]

That's 500,000 people, not 5 million, according to the article you linked to. You're off by an order of magnitude. Still, it's impressive that such a demonstration could take place.

Re:Something to clarify

[JFMulder]

500,000 people would be impressive in other cities around the world, but that's like what, 0.00000001% of the population of Hong Kong?

Re:Acceptable or not

[cyb97]

I think we've all played games or read magazines in class; but you kinda choose to go to school (at least at uni-level). Being an elected politician or scholar it's a whole different thing.

It's scary to think that your society is run by people playing games instead of paying attention to what they're voting over.

Norway had a similar case not long ago, where one politician was caught on camera playing games on his cellphone while in session with the parliament.It certainly didn't go down well ;-)

Re:Acceptable or not

[exick]

We should keep in mind that this story isn't about our politicians. He's from Hong Kong, not Norway or the U.S.

Also, I'm not sure how it works in Hong Kong, but in the U.S., the Secretary of Education isn't an elected position and wouldn't have a vote on any sort of legislation.

Good for him!!

[t0ny]

I know exactly where he's coming from. Ive been to several meetings where I would just play "Space Trader" on my Palm. It was either that, or fall asleep, which I do in some meetings as well.

Its not my fault they have nothing intelligent or interesting to say!

Re:Acceptable or not

[identity0]

Norway had a similar case not long ago, where one politician was caught on camera playing games on his cellphone while in session with the parliament.It certainly didn't go down well ;-)

As I recall, wasn't that guy playing games while the parliment was debating whether to support the U.S. war in Iraq? 0_o I can see why they'd be pissed...